After dramatic overtime wins, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are headed to their ninth (!) Super Bowl together, to face off against young Jared Goff and Sean McVay. But the talk today is all about an obvious, game-deciding blown call, and what the NFL must do to address an officiating crisis. ==================================================================== The story this morning should be, would be, Rams coach Sean McVay taking a franchise that had missed the postseason 12 consecutive times to the Super Bowl in just his second year, and going right through the raucous Superdome to do it. The story this morning should be,...

There’s already a lot of early faith in the New England Patriots winning another Super Bowl. Not long after the Patriots’ thrilling AFC championship game win over the Kansas City Chiefs, the Los Angeles Rams opened as 1-point favorites for Super Bowl LIII at the Westgate Superbook in Las Vegas, according to Lance Pugmire of the Los Angeles Times. That changed fast. Within minutes, the favorite had flipped and the betting line favored the Patriots by 1.5 or 2 points, depending on the Las Vegas sportsbook. The line kept moving in some spots, getting up to 2.5 points at a...

The New England Patriots are going to the Super Bowl. It’s a familiar story that most football fans outside the greater Boston area are weary of. When Tom Brady led an overtime touchdown drive to beat the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, New England punched its ninth Super Bowl ticket of the Brady/Bill Belichick era. Patriots incite anger The reactions on Twitter were swift and often harsh, with many we wouldn’t repost here due to some exceptionally angry language. Some chose to express their anger in less-profane ways.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — They just won’t die. The Patriots survived a wild, back-and-forth game to beat the Chiefs 37-31 in overtime in the AFC Championship at Arrowhead Stadium. The win puts them back in the Super Bowl for the third straight year and fourth time in five years where they will face the Rams in two weeks in Atlanta.

American hurdler and bobsledder Lolo Jones talks wanting to lose her virginity at 36 years old and being open to a showmance in the “Celebrity Big Brother” house. “Celebrity Big Brother” season 2 premieres on Monday, Jan. 21, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Global.

A crucial non-interference, non-helmet-to-helmet call cost the Saints a spot in the Super Bowl and provided a crushing loss to end the season for a second straight year as the Rams won with a field goal in overtime 26-23. After the game, Saints head coach Sean Payton said the NFL head of officials admitted they had missed the call, saying that it was not only pass interference, but a helmet to helmet hit. If the call had been made, the Saints could have killed the clock and tried a chip shot field goal...

A former pairs champion took his own life Friday, just one day after he was suspended by U.S. Figure Skating. [snip] Coughlin was suspended Thursday by U.S. Figure Skating and U.S. Center for SafeSport. USA Today reported a “matter concerning him” was presented to SafeSport. The details were not immediately disclosed. In December, SafeSport restricted his participation in the sport before the “interim suspension” was announced. He was temporarily suspended from “participating in any capacity, in any activity or competition authorized or organized by USFS or the U.S. Olympic Committee,” USA Today reported.

David Stephenson, store manager of Cedar City Deseret Industries, promised his team that if they met their sales goals, he would run at least 200 loops around the roundabout outside of their office—and he would do it in his work clothes: a shirt, tie, and slacks. “Where I work, we train individuals to get better jobs,” he explained. “They all face different challenges in their lives, so I’m always looking for any opportunity to show them that you can do hard things, even if some thing seem impossible—or not the smartest thing to do, in my case—you can still accomplish...

Main Card and early prelims (the latter in progress) are on ESPN+, a stupid streaming service you got to pay extra for. Boo. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum for me. The regular prelims will air on ESPN, top of the hour. Bantamweight Champ TJ Dillashaw moves down to 125 to take on Flyweight title holder Henry Cejudo in the main event.

Lynn Swann continues to get on the bad side of USC fans, and his latest act will only fray the relationship further. Swann, the Trojans’ athletic director, has blocked the famous USC Song Girls from performing at USC home basketball games for the rest of the season. The Los Angeles Times reported the news on Friday, saying Swann put the order into effect in late November. Instead of the Song Girls, a dance group called the Trojan Dance Force performs at basketball games.

His name is a parenting epithet. Overcoach your kid, get too excited about a touchdown or a home run or a goal, and you might hear it, even in jest: You're just like Marv Marinovich! Look at Marv Marinovich over here! The story is part of American lore, the ultimate in Sports Dad Goes Overboard. BRED TO BE A SUPERSTAR, read the Feb. 22, 1988, Sports Illustrated headline. And the subhead: Todd Marinovich was groomed from infancy to be a top-notch quarterback. Infancy was not hyperbole. America's first test-tube athlete, they called Todd. The Robo QB. Marv stretched his son's...

A new international sports team may have a supernatural boost: Vatican representatives announced last week that the city-state has launched a national track and field team. The group will start with about 60 members, pending official clearance and a health examination required by the Italian government, Father Melchor Jose Sanchez de Toca y Alameda, team president and the head of the Vatican’s sports department in the culture ministry, told Runner’s World. Those members range in age from 18 to 62, and have a variety of professions within the Vatican. “There’s all types of people—it cuts across the Vatican world. There...

If you haven’t seen the clip of Ohashi’s performance, go watch it right now. It’s barely a minute long. I’ll wait right here. OK, are we good? That was something, wasn’t it? I think there are a number of reasons why tens of millions of people are responding so positively—and emotionally—to this. First of all, Ohashi is an incredible athlete—she does about 20 things in this routine that if an ordinary human like you or me ever did, we would never stop talking about it for the rest of our lives. She makes extremely difficult maneuvers like tumbling passes look...

We are 18 years into the New England Patriots dynasty. A run that started during the 2001 regular season is likely going to stretch into its third decade, which would be unprecedented in most sports and seems downright unfathomable in the modern NFL, where attrition and the salary cap conspire to strike down promising teams before they grow comfortable atop their divisions. There might never be a team like the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick Patriots again. By virtue of that 18-year reign, though, the Patriots have amassed what amounts to a popular folklore. There are stories and arguments about how the...

NASCAR legend Glen Wood dies at 93 NASCAR January 18, 2019 10:07am ESTJanuary 18, 2019 10:07am ESTMotorsport, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, English, NASCARWood and his brother, Leonard, co-founded Wood Brothers Racing in 1950, making it the oldest active team in the sport. Longtime NASCAR team owner Glen Wood has died at age 93, Wood Brothers Racing announced Friday. It’s with profound sadness that we mourn the passing of team founder and family patriarch Glen Wood this morning. We want to thank family, friends, our small-town Virginia community of Patrick County, as well as everyone in the NASCAR community for their...

The No. 4 Cavaliers gear up for their biggest game of the season against the No. 1 Blue Devils After a decisive 81-59 win against No. 9 Virginia Tech (14-2, 3-1 ACC), the No. 4 Virginia men’s basketball team (16-0, 4-0 ACC) is set to play No. 1 Duke (15-1, 4-1 ACC) Saturday. All eyes will be on the most anticipated college basketball clash of the season between two ACC powerhouses. ESPN’s CollegeGameday is making the trip to Durham, N.C., where thousands of Blue Devil faithful will be camping out to get into Cameron Indoor Stadium.

When it comes to Super Bowl LIII, air traffic controllers are flying blind. The government shutdown has already resulted in canceled planning meetings for the Feb. 3 game in Atlanta, and if the federal budget impasse continues, airport screeners and flight controllers at the busiest airport in the world will be working on game day for no pay. Dan McCabe, a National Air Traffic Controllers Association representative, told NBC News that his colleagues had been holding meetings over the past year to prepare for the surge in travelers to the area. But now the planning meetings, which included officials from...

Erin Menefee’s doctors have a nickname for her: Supergirl. Similar to the comic book hero, the 26-year-old physical therapist has faced obstacles head-on with tenacity. But in her case, her superhuman strength comes in the form of running marathons less than two years after open-heart surgery. Menefee first noticed something wrong in December of 2015, when she took off on a long run during a break in her day at San Diego State University, where she was studying to become a physical therapist. At the time, the former collegiate runner for the University of Arizona was training for a transition...

Veteran broadcaster Bob Costas is stepping down from his longtime role with NBC Sports. Costas told the New York Post of the decision Tuesday, which the network confirmed with the paper. “It’s all settled quietly and happily for all concerned,” Costas told The Post. Costas also told The Post he will continue to do work for MLB Network and is considering pursuing a long-form interview show.

Eli Grba, the first player to throw a pitch for the Angels, died Monday night in Florence, Ala., after a three-month battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 84. Grba, a bespectacled pitcher with a penchant for partying and a competitive spirit, was known as the Original Angel. With the opening selection of MLB’s first expansion draft in December 1960, Angels general manager Fred Haney made Grba the first addition to the Angels’ inaugural roster. “I’m a trivia question until I die,” Grba said in a 2011 television interview. “I’m the first guy that’s ever been drafted — and the first...